天使报喜

In 1785 Goya was 39 and on his way up at the Spanish court, years before the illness that left him deaf and turned his work dark. This small, quickly brushed panel is not a finished picture but his working idea for a large altarpiece, and you can watch him thinking. He would change his mind on the way to the final version. God the Father, floating here at the top, was dropped, and the Virgin and the angel Gabriel swapped sides. The pale, spring-like colours are pure early Goya, loose and fresh. The finished version was painted for a chapel in Madrid. This is the private first thought behind it, kept because it showed how he worked.